Senseless
by f-romanoff-13
Summary: An ancient artifact explodes in the tower; causing some of The Avengers to lose certain senses, the mysterious figure who stole their senses is trying to kill them and to top it all off - they're locked in the tower with no help from SHIELD or JARVIS. Reviews are always appreciated!
1. Chapter 1

**PART 1**

Lights flashed and sirens wailed; NYPD and SHIELD agents surrounded the tower. It was empty now, completely evacuated apart from the three people who lay unconscious on the 47th floor...

Pepper looked up from the mountain of paperwork on her desk; the news showing images of the tower where she lived, headlines of a quarantine scrolled across the screen. 'Dammit Tony! What'd you do now?' was the first thought that entered her mind, before the panic and worry set in.

She did a mental list; Bruce was away; visiting a clinic in Africa, due back next week and Thor was back in Asgard. Clint and Natasha had been away on a mission for SHIELD, but should be back any day now. Pepper wondered if they'd been there too, and where Steve had been when this had happened, or whether it was Tony alone who'd been involved this time.

As she listened to the news more details arose. There'd been some sort of disruption on one of the upper floors. Probably one of the labs. An unknown substance had been detected by JARVIS who had initiated an evacuation, only somehow JARVIS had been affected too and he'd been deactivated.

* * *

**PART 2**

Clint woke first; confusion clouding his thoughts. He'd just returned to Avengers Tower after a 2 week mission in Baghdad with Nat. The mission hadn't exactly gone to plan. But they'd met the objectives and both made it home relatively unscathed.  
But now he was lay in the middle of one of Stark's labs; covered in the remnants of one of the walls.  
He looked around, trying to get his bearings; Stark was lay on his stomach not far away.

Stark shook his head, trying to clear his mind. Clint was sat on his left, rubbing his forehead in pain and looking round the remains of the lab. Tony shifted himself. _'JARVIS'_ he tried to say, but no sound came out. He began to panic. _'Clint, Clint! Can you hear me? Have I gone deaf?' _  
Clint was still scanning the rest of the room; no doubt looking for his partner, completely oblivious to Tony's words. He clapped, trying to get Clint's attention; and although that failed, Tony heard the clap; a sigh of relief that he wasn't deaf. However that meant he was left unable to speak. Great.

Clint's thoughts of where exactly Nat could be were interrupted by a hand on his shoulder. He turned quickly; adopting a defensive position, to see it was only Tony. Clint hadn't heard him approach, he must have been deeper in thought that he'd realised.  
"What the hell happened Stark?"  
He didn't hear the words that left his mouth; his hands flew to his ears in panic. Tony shrugged in response, so obviously he had heard him, but Clint could hear nothing but a distant ringing.  
Tony ran off, grabbing a pad of paper and pen, quickly scribbling down something before turning it towards Clint: _'I can't speak'_  
A look of concern flicked across Clint's face: "I can't hear"  
The two men looked at each other, they'd both reached a stage of understanding. This hadn't happened by accident. Someone had somehow removed the use of one of their senses. Loss of hearing could occur after being near an explosion, but loss of speech was not a common side effect. They had to find Nat, both hoping she hadn't been affected by whatever had gotten to them.


	2. Chapter 2

**PART 1**

Pepper was re-directed to SHIELD HQ once she left Stark Industries for the day, as she was unable to return home. She located Coulson, Hill, Fury and Steve in one of the meeting rooms. So Steve wasn't there when the incident had occurred. She found herself praying that nothing too serious was happening, and that whoever had been in the tower was okay.

"JARVIS was unable to send us any useful information before it was shut down" Hill informed the others.

"How many people were inside?" Pepper asked. She was concerned. Concerned about her boyfriend, her friends, the staff...

"Just Mr. Stark, and Agents Romanoff and Barton as far as we're aware, everyone else was evacuated before the explosion but we're working on finding out for sure"

"Explosion?! Do we know if..."

"All three are alive Ms. Potts, but that's all we do know"

Pepper looked at the four people before her. She knew they were worried too. But they didn't show it like she did.

"Let me go in?" Steve asked, desperation showing in his voice. "They could be in serious trouble in there"

"No way Mr. Rogers. Not until we know what the hell happened in there. We can't risk losing you too" Fury answered sternly. "But I guess its a good idea if you suit up in the event we figure this out soon"

"Yes sir" And with that, Steve turned to leave, followed by Coulson.

Hill turned to leave too, pausing to turn to Pepper: "I'm going to check in with the research team, want to come?"  
"I've got nothing else to do"

* * *

PART 2

After a short search Tony and Clint had found Natasha. She was still unconscious, a large piece of wall covered most of her torso, and there was shattered glass everywhere. Clint lifted the heavy piece of concrete from his partners body while Tony pulled her free. They lay her on the floor and Clint checked Natasha over; apart from a few cracked ribs and a deep cut on her head that gushed blood down her face, she was okay. They'd have to wait until she woke to see if she too had lost the use of one of her senses.

The next few hours passed slowly. Clint, unable to hear anything, was incredibly jumpy, especially every time Tony poked him in order to get his attention. Tony was getting frustrated at his own lack of ability to voice his many thoughts, the pen and paper in his hands functioned much slower than his mind and his voice.

Natasha stirred quietly, Tony threw a balled up piece of paper at Clint. He turned angrily, but soon realised why he had wanted his attention.

"Nat, Nat, can you hear me?" He said as he rushed towards her.

"Volume down, Barton" she slurred in response, her eyes still tightly closed as she came too.

Clint turned to Tony who nodded. She could both hear and speak. At least that was something.  
She opened her eyes and sat up with a start, panic written all over her face.

"What is it Nat? What's wrong?"She rubbed her eyes, blinking hard. Her hands gripped Clint's shoulders, her fingers tightening around his shirt.

"Clint, I can't see anything"  
Tony gasped, or tried to.

"Tony, what's going on?" Clint asked urgently.

He scribbled one word on the pad in front of him, showing Clint: _'blind'_

"Oh Nat... I'm so sorry. We'll fix it. I promise!"

"Clint, what happened? Where's Tony?"

Clint turned to face Tony helplessly.

"Clint? Clint talk to me? What the hell is going on?!" She said shaking his shoulders slightly in desperation for an answer; she was staring straight through him, he was inches from her face and yet she couldn't see him. Tony quickly wrote a one word instruction to Clint: _'explain'_.

"Nat, that artifact Thor dropped off last week, you remember? Well it exploded... Something happened to us; Tony can't speak and I can't hear. JARVIS is down so no help from him... And we're under quarantine, locked in the tower!"

"Seriously?"

Tony nodded, "yes" Clint voiced for him.

"Fuck!"

* * *

The last thing Natasha remembered was walking into Tony's lab on the 33rd floor with Clint. They'd been debating the mission and what had gone wrong. She blamed bad intel; leading her, Clint and two junior agents into a situation they hadn't been prepared or equipped for, while Clint blamed the other agents incompetence; stating the bad judgement of the other team had cause the whole thing to go to pot. In reality: it was a combination of the two.

They'd come straight to this floor after receiving an urgent message from Tony. "Guys! Guys come look at this! This is so cool!" "What exactly..." Clint had begun before he saw it. A silver sphere, about the size of an orange, was vibrating and glowing, floating several inches above one of the work stations near the center of the lab. Tony was stood peering at it in amazement. Clint tried to prod it, Natasha's hand wrapped round his wrist before he could, she just shook her head.

A high pitched screech escaped from the sphere as the light grew brighter, pulsating; the sphere began to increase in size, swelling to the size of a soccer ball. "I didn't do anything!" Clint said, hands up. That was when the thing exploded, sending the three of them flying backwards, Natasha through a partition wall, and that was when it all went black.


	3. Chapter 3

**PART 1**

SHIELD scientists were able to discover very little. The quarantine procedure initiated by JARVIS had resulting in a transfer of data to the SHEILD archive, however JARVIS had somehow been shut down, and the information transfer interrupted.

"The only thing we know for certain is that there is evidence of something in the tower which is not from earth sir"

"This is ridiculous!" Fury yelled in anger, he was tapping the comm unit in his ear "Why exactly can't we contact them?"

"All electronic devises inside the tower seem to have been disabled, sir" Hill answered, her voice calm and clear as ever "including all the security footage"

"So, you're telling me, we have our best people locked inside that god damn tower, with no way to contact them or get them out, they could be dying in there and we can't do anything about it!"

"I'm afraid so sir"

"We need some eyes in there. We need to know where we stand"

"But sir, the quarantine procedure was put in progress, until there is no longer a threat we won't be able to get in there, or get them out"

"So Agent Hill, what you're saying is; they're pretty much on their own"

"Unfortunately, sir, that's exactly what I'm saying"

The sensor sounded on the SHIELD alerts; finally they'd been able to reactivate one of the systems in the tower. "Sir, according to these readings, there's actually five life signs in the tower! The fourth belongs to Banner, but the fifth is unknown" Agent Banks called.

"What? How can that be possible? Was the perimeter breached?"

"That's what's strange sir; it wasn't"

* * *

**PART 2**

The situation inside the tower was more complicated than the three first thought. Conversations were slow, long and repetitive; Clint translating Tony to Natasha and Tony translating Natasha to Clint. Tony had decided to try to locate any remaining pieces of the sphere, while Natasha tried to learn her surroundings. After walking into a table, desk or wall for the thirteenth time, she became truly frustrated. She complained about how ridiculous this whole situation was, about how helpless she felt; she was angry that she couldn't have a conversation with either of her team mates without the third one there, she ranted about the absurdity of an item that could cause this, and why such an item was needed in the first place, but with Tony otherwise occupied and Clint unable to hear, her outburst went unheard.

Natasha was on her third walk round the elaborate lab when Clint yelled at her to duck, she did so, narrowly escaping the knife that had been thrown in her direction.

"Left Nat, move to the..." There was a sickening crack followed by a thud.

"Clint? Clint?.." Another knife was flung in her direction, embedding in her thigh. She sunk to the floor, waiting for a sound to give her the location of her attacker, but nothing ever came.

Her hands were covered in blood as she crawled towards where she thought Clint had been, half dragging her right leg. Their attacker had made no further attempts to finish what they'd started and she needed to know if Clint was okay. There was more blood, lots of blood, but Natasha could feel Clints chest rising and falling in a steady rhythm. He had to be unconscious for him to have stopped directing her against the attack. She located the source of the blood; a deep gash at the base of his skull and stemmed the bleeding as best she could.

Someone was behind her, she could sense it. She grabbed a weapon and spun round, balancing unsteadily on her left leg. Two hands wrapped gently around her wrists, pulling her free hand slowly towards them until she could feel the odd shape of the arc reactors on Tony's chest.

She sighed with relief, suddenly realising how light headed she felt. She must have lost more blood than she'd thought. She slumped against Tony who lower her carefully to the floor. She could feel his muscles were tense, he was alert, and she had to trust that he'd watch out for her.

It had been a few hours since the attack. Clint was still unconscious, but Natasha was feeling a little better now her wound had been properly dressed by Tony.

Natasha and Tony found they couldn't communicate well at all without Clint; Natasha would ask questions and Tony would squeeze her hand once for yes and twice for no, but there was little else they could do. She'd told Tony to clap twice if he saw any sign of an attack, but other than warn her, he was pretty useless in directing her through a fight. They really needed Clint.

Tony saw the silent tears that fell from Natasha's eyes as she stroked Clint's hair, and even if he could, he wouldn't have said anything.

He silently went to get some tissues from the storage closet, as he opened the door he was met with a surprise. Bruce lay there, unconscious, he looked almost like a ghost. When Tony went to check he was okay, his hands went straight through him. Bruce had lost his sense of touch, in some weird way, making him incorporeal.

Suddenly there was a crash and a bang from the other room. Tony sprinted back, a box of tissues grasped in one hand. He skidded round the corner to see Natasha struggling against a figure cloaked in black. The figure was stood behind her; long skeletal fingers wrapped tightly round her neck. He was choking her, and rather successfully too. His long arms allowed him to stay far enough back that her attempts at kicking failed. She was clawing at the fingers around her neck, drawing her own blood as the tried to pry his fingers from her neck; desperation showing on her face as she went longer and longer without a breath.  
Tony grabbed a large beaker from the work top and lobbed it. His aim wasn't great and it missed the cloaked figure completely, but distracted him enough in order for Natasha to twist in his grip, elbowing him in the jaw. She scrambled away from him, crawling a few paces away before collapsing on the floor.

The hooded figure turned to face Tony, bright red eyes glaring at him from under the cloak; "you'll pay for that!" It was Tony's own voice threatening him back, it was incredibly eerie. That was when the figure lunged at him.

They grappled with each other, Tony having slightly more luck than Natasha owing to the fact that A) He could see, and B) They were fighting face to face. He got a few hits in, but nothing seemed to really affect him. A fist swung at his waist, throwing him backwards, another fist came flying towards his face. Tony managed to duck, avoiding the blow that would have undoubtedly left him unconscious. The fist embedded itself into the wall behind him. There was no way any normal person could have done that. It was as if the mysterious figure had some of the hulks strength...

Natasha could hear a commotion behind her; her head was pounding, her lungs burning, and without being able to focus on a single spot; the dizziness wouldn't pass. She couldn't figure out which way she'd crawled; there was a gun and 2 knifes that she'd left by Clint, but she couldn't find him. She'd lost all sense of direction during the attack. She tried frantically to get to her weapons, she knew how strong this guy was; the bruises already marring her neck evident to that. She had to help Tony.

Tony scrambled over to her, diving behind her. The figure still trying to free his arm from the wall; stuck up to his elbow in the thick layer of concrete. Tony covered Natasha's eyes and watched to see if his theory was correct; he was proved right when the figured seemed to get more irate, twisting to try and face them. He dragged Natasha to her feet, turned her to face him and shoved her gun in her hands, re covering her eyes as the figure broke free.

Natasha didn't miss a beat as she emptied her clip, successfully taking the figure down.


	4. Chapter 4

"Urm, Maria, what's that noise?" Pepper had been sat around helplessly for hours. Watching SHIELD agents milling about, muttering under their breaths, analysing various bits of data; all having no luck. Thor had arrived back from Asgard too; sensing something had happened but was left just as unable as Pepper and Steve to help.

"That's, that's the quarantine being lifted! Sir, sir, we can get in there now. The danger seems to have been dealt with"

"Rogers, Thor; get in there!"

...

"The area is secure sir" came Rogers' voice over the comms "The threat has been neutralised by Agent Romanoff, we could do with a medic to check them over tho sir"

"I want to talk to them"

"Yes sir"

The six Avengers, including the now conscious Bruce and Clint, gathered in the least destroyed corner of the lab. Pepper looked them over cautiously. Clint had blood all down the back of his neck running down the back of his top from a deep cut buried somewhere under his hair. He looked tired, but his face looked happy, almost relieved as he listened to the others. Natasha looked terrible. Blood ran down her face and from the various scratches on her neck which was also covered in deep black bruises. She had a blood-soaked bandage wrapped around her right thigh; she leaned on Clint slightly, but not enough for most to notice, one of Clint's hands gently stroking the back of her neck. Tony didn't look too bad in comparison. A bit knocked about, a few bruises; he was breathing heavily having been winded during the scuffle. While Bruce's looked uninjured, a mask of concern worn on his face.

Fury questioned them relentlessly, Tony answering most of the questions, more than happy to be able to speak. He told how each of them had lost the use of one of their senses; Clint's hearing, Natasha's sight, Bruce's touch and his own speech. He explained that the figure had spoken with Tony's own voice, and his apparent 'Hulk strength' made him realise that the figure had 'borrowed' their senses, and by closing Natasha's eyes; had left him unable to see. Their senses were still their own, they just couldn't access them.  
This is when Thor stepped up, explaining the missing pieces;

"I am truly sorry for all the trouble, you were unfortunately affected by a spell cast by an ancient sorcerer named Vali, he was a trusted leader of my people who turned against his own, he ruled by ensilling his subjects with fear and torturing those who did not comply. He was banished many thousands of years ago, cursed to have his senses removed; forced to live an eternity in isolation. If he had managed to kill you, he would have kept your senses and become whole once again. I suspect this is the reason he went after Lady Natasha first; he worked out it was your sight he had stolen, and saw that as his greatest strength. Had he succeeded he would have no doubt resumed his rule of terror. I did not recognise the sphere as the tomb of Vali when I left it with you. I cannot make this right. I am eternally sorry"

"Chill out big guy, its all good" Tony smiled at him.

"No harm, no foul" Natasha agreed.

"What I want to know" Fury began sternly "is if this idiot will stay dead this time?" he finished, kicking Vali"s black form lay on the floor.

"He will" Thor answered solemnly. "But I do suggest you dispose of the body sooner, rather than later.

* * *

Bruce was cleared to leave medical first. He was uninjured, Vali had apparently used a sedative to knock him out; apart from a headache he was fine. Tony was allowed to leave next, the punch he'd taken to his gut had winded him and left a nasty bruise, but medically he was fine and after his throat was checked out to ensure no lasting damage to his voice, Pepper took him home. Natasha and Clint were both kept in longer. Natasha had more than a few wounds that needed to be redressed, and the doctors were concerned about her neck. Being strangled by an evil banished Asgardian who had Hulk-like strength didn't do you any good. And it was Clint's head wound that gave them an excuse to keep him in longer. Eventually they were both released and allowed to return to Avengers tower.

Straight to the 63rd floor they met the other members of their team along with Pepper.  
Jurassic Park had just started on the large TV and the two assassins threw themselves down on the spare sofa. Within minutes Bruce was snoring softly on the large arm chair, Tony had fallen asleep leaning on Pepper's shoulder, while Natasha and Clint dozed off leaning against each other.


End file.
